Ancient & modern
The Tory leader Michael Howard has published a list of his ‘beliefs’. If this was a political move, Athenians would have found it baffling. The 5th-century bc thinker Protagoras defined ‘excellence’ as ‘proper management of one’s own business ... and of the city’s too, so that one can make the most effective contribution to its affairs both as a speaker and man of action’. Socrates interjected, ‘I assume you are describing the art of politics and promising to make men good citizens.’ Protagoras agreed that was exactly what he had in mind. To us it is surely an extraordinary idea that one of the main duties of the politician was to make men ‘good citizens’.